$340 Golden Nugget PLO

Took a trip downtown for today's noon PLO event at the Nugget. The structure was really good, the same as the PLO8 tournament I played down there last week. I expected the field to be pretty strong and it was. I still feel a bit out of my element with PLO as I just have so little experience playing the game. For non Omaha players it is tough to quantify exactly how big a difference there is between Pot Limit Omaha, and Pot Limit Omaha with a Hi/Lo split. I just don't have a comfort zone in exactly what I should be playing preflop. However, I have enough confidence in my tournament poker and postflop understanding of where I am at in hands that I think I am a decent PLO tourney player. Anyways, my table was ok. I had two players that I knew were very good PLO players to my right that I have seen around before and played cash against the one. The one guy is an ass. One of these guys that looks for every possible angle at the table and likes to tell the dealers how to do their job every second hand. Anyways, he gets completely owned in a hand where he makes 2nd nut flush into nut flush and is out early.

In the 3rd round I get this hand against the solid player to my right. I have AKQ4 and see a flop 5 ways. The flop comes KJ3 rainbow and the solid player leads out small. 225 into a 800 pot. I call with top pair and a gutter. Turn is a K so I have trip K's with the A kicker. He checks to me and I think he probably is on some kinda wrap straight draw and bet 1k. He calls relatively quick and this sends alarm bells ringing. Why is he calling on a paired board? I now think at best we have the same hand or I am in some trouble. The river is a blank 5 and he checks again, I check as well and he tables the nuts with KJ looking to have me bet the river again. Even though I lose the pot I am happy with how I lost what I felt was the minimum to lose on the hand.

My stack bleeds to about 6k when I get this hand at the 100/200 blind level. I have AKT9 and see the flop 5 ways. The flop is QJ5 with two spades. I flop the wrap draw on the high and I hold the Ace of spades but no other spade in my hand. This is referred to as the naked ace. An player out of the blinds leads out 1k, a player who I have really come to respect over the first couple hours, calls, and I call as well. My plan is if I make my straight to bet it, if a spade falls I will represent having the nuts with a pot bet. The turn is a blank 6h so I check, next player checks, respected player now bets 3300, at this point I am confident he has a set. If I had more chips than under 5k in front of me I might call if I thought I had fold equity on the river if a spade came. So, I have to fold. The other guy calls behind me, a spade comes and he leads pot and takes it down. I would have made a straight on the end but I am sure the middle player makes spades.

A little after that Miami Jim sits at my table. He was talking to me on-line a couple days ago, and told me to look out for him while he was in town he would likely be wearing a Ferrari or Porsche ball cap. So, this guy sits down with a Porsche hat and a ring with JIM spelled out in diamonds. Hmmm, I wonder if it is him. I introduce myself and he congratulates me on my recent WSOP seat win. He makes a pot raise from early position we get two other callers and in the bb I have T876 and decide to take a flop for 500 chips. The flop comes 56K rainbow. I flop middle pair with open ended to the nut straight. I check and Jim fires out a big bet. The other two fold and I contemplate things for a bit. I decide to push all in here. If he just has AA and was firing out a continuation bet then I may be able to get him to laydown and if not I have a ton of outs to beat aces. Well, Jim calls faster than I can say all-in and has top set of K's. I don't catch up and his hand holds and I bust out. Not too disappointed to see my chips go to a good guy who will use them well.

I played about 7 hours of on-line last night, determined to play better and log a solid winning session. the first few hours were a roller coaster. Up quickly and then coolered hard in a number of big pots to be down. I fought back to about even and grinded for a few hours when I finally started hitting hands and being on the right side of some quartering pots. I ended up making about $1300 playing 3 tables of 2/4plo8 and one 3/6 plo8 table so I was quite happy with my results. I am going to play on-line this afternoon and into the evening. My buddy Travis gets here tonight so I will see what he is up to tonight. He'll probably like to get his feet wet in a big cash game somewhere so I may just rip on-line all night and go throw away money at a live tournament again tomorrow.

I'm still really not unhappy with my overall live play I just am getting frustrated with not getting deep into the money. John gets into town tomorrow and we will be playing the Caesars $340 on Saturday, $150 PLO8 binions on Sunday, $1500 PLO8 wsop on Tuesday. Hopefully, it will help me refocus with him down here. We'll be splitting our results in any tournaments we play together so hopefully the two is better than one strategy helps and one of us can hit a good score.